JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Despite an 8% quarter-on-quarter decrease in gold production to 136 787 oz for the three months ended December 31, Aim-listed Centamin still exceeded its production guidance for the full year, producing 551 036 oz.
Forecast production for 2017 from the Sukari gold mine, in Egypt, still stands at 540 000 oz, with an estimated cash operating cost of $580/oz and an all-in-sustaining cost of $790/oz.
This guidance is based on a plant throughput of 11.75-million tonnes and about one-million tonnes of underground ore mined at a grade of 7.26 g/t.
However, during the fourth quarter of 2016, openpit total material movement decreased 2% on the previous quarter to 15.81-million tonnes. Openpit ore production decreased by 25% to 2.18-million tonnes at an average mined grade of 0.84 g/t.
The average head grade to the plant from the openpit was 0.85 g/t. The run-of-mine ore stockpile balance decreased by 592 000 t to 577 000 t at the end of the period.
Quarterly throughput at the process plant was 2 948 t, a 5% increase on the previous quarter, while the underground operation delivered 228 000 t of ore, 10% less than the previous quarter, at an average mined grade of 10.43 g/t. Ore from stoping was 125 000 t at 10.01 g/t and ore from development was 103 000 t at 10.94 g/t.
During the first quarter of this year, the openpit is scheduled to develop a low-grade east wall cutback and planned gold production will be lower than the fourth quarter of 2016. With ongoing optimisation, there remains scope for further increases in productivity and production growth.
CEO Andrew Pardey noted that free cash flow generation from Sukari further strengthened Centamin's financial position during 2016, “a trend we expect to continue”.